We flew out to Guam a few weeks ago and it was a long day of traveling. We left for the airport at 3:30 am, flew out to San Francsico at 7:30 am, then made a connecting flight that had us in Honolulu four and a half hours later. Unfortunately, we almost didn't make our connecting flight to Guam because the flight arrived later than it was supposed to. Then it was seven and a half hours from Honolulu to Guam. I don't know how it happened but we had the best flights ever with lovely people sitting around us, and two children who never cried, complained, or had meltdowns. I am so, so grateful for how easily our kids make traveling.
The not-so-amazing part came when we landed, cleared Customs, and stood looking around for our ride to the hotel.
And there was no one.
I couldn't believe that we had just flown half-way across the world and no one was there to pick us up. C made a couple of phone calls and an hour and a half after we landed, someone finally showed up.
We were put up in a villa owned by the hotel on the base and it had the most comfortable beds. Of course, the babies didn't sleep for the first week on the island because of the 18-hour time change, which made the bed's comfort level completely moot.
Our first day on island was spent lounging and walking the two miles up to to the store to get groceries. The next day we went up to the housing office to check in and see if there were any houses available. Amazingly enough, they gave us three house options and we spent the morning driving around, checking out our options. We decided on a house where we have a view of the harbor and can hear the surf.
It took a week for the housing office to get the house read for us, but it was still one of the fastest move-ins. Other families have waited up to three months to be offered a house. The other great news? The house we chose is brand new and we are the first family to live in it. It's amazing--has a great, wide-open floor plan, tiles throughout the entire house, granite counter tops, and double sinks in the master bath. I love it!
On the same day we were given keys to the house, we also received our household goods. And spent the day unpacking and the weekend getting organized. Out of the hundreds of boxes, only four items were damaged, which is pretty astounding. However one of those items was our 50" plasma tv. :( We've filed a claim and I can only hope we get reimbursed quickly enough to take advantage of holiday sales so we can get a shiny new t.v. that's even better than our old one.
Now we're just waiting on our car to arrive so we can start exploring the island and really start living our island lives! Fingers crossed it shows up soon since it's already been three week of carless-ness and two miles is a long way to walk in the heat and humidity to get groceries!
